


Beloved Dust

by DevineMandate



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:27:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23133154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DevineMandate/pseuds/DevineMandate
Summary: Strike thinks about his mother at some length.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 19





	Beloved Dust

“Heading out,” said Robin, moving toward the office door, and for once, he was glad; Strike felt relief that he could finally be alone with his thoughts at the end of this long day.

“Right, thanks, night,” he said without really looking at her.

She did not move. “Cormoran, are you all right?”

Strike looked up at Robin, and her worried face brought him out of his brooding. “Yeah, I’m all right, why?”

“You just...seem a little out of sorts. Like something is bothering you.”

Shit, she’s too good at reading him now. He doesn’t need to weigh her down with this.

“Eh, leg’s bothering me some. Sorry if I’ve been short with you or anything.”

“No, nothing like that, just seems like something’s eating at you.”

Way too good at reading him.

“Bastard leg. I’ll be better tomorrow, promise.”

She did not really look mollified, but let him be, for which he was grateful. “All right. Well, have a good night, then. Hope you feel better soon.”

“Thanks, Robin. Night.”

Strike sat and listened as Robin went down the stairs, thinking about the nasty anniversary he was observing.

It was eighteen years now. Eighteen years since the day Leda Strike had departed this world. Or been forcibly removed from it anyway.

There had probably been occasional days in the last eighteen years where Strike did not think about his mother and her death, but if so, they were few and far between. He’d wager they numbered fewer than his fingers and toes combined, even allowing that he had five fewer than most people.

He wondered if it was the same for Lucy. Did she truly grieve for their mother or was it only a relief to her that she was dead? Had Lucy dismissed Leda so thoroughly that she no longer thought about her? Did she have any room for love left after all the contempt? It bothered him that Lucy was so constantly disparaging of Leda and their childhood. He saw now, of course, that many of the things his mother had done were not good parenting. Neglectful or endangering, even. But she had taught them about justice and fairness and helping the unfortunate, and her words were not empty. Whether it was a starving, feral kitten, or a junkie in the street, she took the less fortunate in and did her best to turn their lives around. Shanker had been one of her projects, and while he wasn’t perhaps the classiest, most productive member of society, he was doing a damn sight better now than the day Leda had picked him up like a stray dog. The love in her heart had been overflowing, had had to find a channel to fill, a gap to close, a person to save.

Until her heart had stopped.

Whittaker. It had been Whittaker, he knew it, he knew it. That rotten motherfucker. He’d stolen Leda from Strike and from the world. He’d like to slam his head into the wall and squeeze the life out of him, but though that might make him feel better for a few moments, it wouldn’t bring his mum back.

Strike’s favorite poem about death is, funnily enough, not in a dead language. It’s the Edna St. Vincent Millay poem “And You as Well Must Die, Beloved Dust”. The tragedy of death’s inevitability and permanence are so well expressed in it. When he’d studied it in school, he had conceptually grasped it, been able to break it down and discuss it clinically with his fellow students. Now he only fights tears when he reads it or thinks about it.

_And you as well must die, beloved dust,  
And all your beauty stand you in no stead;  
This flawless, vital hand, this perfect head,  
This body of flame and steel, before the gust  
Of Death, or under his autumnal frost,  
Shall be as any leaf, be no less dead  
Than the first leaf that fell,—this wonder fled.  
Altered, estranged, disintegrated, lost.  
Nor shall my love avail you in your hour.  
In spite of all my love, you will arise  
Upon that day and wander down the air  
Obscurely as the unattended flower,  
It mattering not how beautiful you were,  
Or how beloved above all else that dies._  


Yes, Leda Strike had been beloved above all else in his heart. And it hadn’t mattered at all, didn’t matter at all. She was gone. Forever.

Strike looked up to stop the stinging sensation in his eyes. He hadn’t cried since his nephew Jack had been in hospital, and he did not want to do so now. Better to think about how things had been.

********

_One day, he’d been thirteen, at school, and he and a group of boys had bullied another boy their age for being “a pansy”, “a sissy”. They’d been caught._

_Normally, him getting in trouble at school had been nothing to Leda. This time, though, when she’d come to take him home, she’d looked grave. She was silent taking him to the car, and on most of the drive home (whatever “home” might have been at the time, he honestly didn’t remember). It had been ominous to him. He had never known her to not talk to him at such length when they were alone. Eventually, though, she had spoken._

_“Is it true? Did you hurt that child?”_

_He had never felt so ashamed in his life, had never felt so ashamed since. “Yes, Mum.”_

_She was silent again for some time, and then: “Why?”_

_Young Cormoran had looked at his mother’s face, and she was not angry, but sad and disappointed, and he had broken down and wept at length, mired in shame._

_After he’d calmed down some, his mother had said, “I’m glad to see you feeling some remorse, at least, though I’m sorry it took someone else saying something to bring it out of you.”_

_She had pulled over and turned to look at him. “Listen to me, son, this is the most important thing I’ve ever told you.”_

_He had been rapt._

_“The worst thing anyone can do is abuse or take advantage of someone who is weak or vulnerable or an outcast. It is your job to protect people like that, not hurt them. You must never, ever again hurt anyone like you did today. The next time, be the one who stops it, not one of the mob. You’re so tall and strong already. Use those gifts to be a protector, not a bully. Do you understand?”_

********

“Yes, Mum.” Strike said it aloud in his office, affirming the code he’d tried to live by since that day. It was rare that he spoke to his mother at length, aloud or in his head, but today:

“I haven’t forgotten you or the things you taught me. I miss you always, I’ll miss you till the day I die. I so desperately wish I could see you just one more time. If I could only...if I could only have five minutes with you. Just five minutes to hold you and tell you how much I love you and smell your hair and hear your voice one more time. It’s so wrong that you’re not here. I’ll bring your killer to justice one day, I swear to God.”

Silence filled the office; the memory of Leda Strike filled the office.

“Wish you could see Lucy’s kids. They’d have loved you.” He was smiling. “Lucy would have hated that.”

He stopped again.

“You’d like Robin.” He thought of Robin disobeying him during the Laing case. “You’d love her, actually. She’s like you, always trying to help the people who need the most help. Feeling other people’s pain and trying to help, no matter the cost to herself. Wish you two could have known each other. You’d have driven me barmy, the two of you, telling me what to do. It’s a wonder Robin isn’t here right now, trying to wheedle what's wrong out of me.”

His mobile rang, startling him. Robin. He picked up.

“Robin, hi. Anything wrong?”

“Cormoran...I’m sorry if I’m butting in, but I kept thinking about you after I left. I started looking things up, and I realised what day it is for you.”

Strike felt as though he should feel annoyed or intruded upon, but he was more touched by her thinking of him at length than he was annoyed at her for trying to find out something that’s his business.

“Yeah." A pause. "Good detective work,” he said, smiling, and he felt some good humour for the first time in hours.

“Cormoran, I understand if you want to be alone, but can I...could I be there with you? You don’t have to talk or anything, I just want to be there with you.”

She was too good a person for him; he didn’t deserve her. He shouldn’t drag her into this, ruin her evening being maudlin. And yet:

“I’d like that,” said Strike. “D’you mind grabbing a couple of Doom Bars on your way?”

Her smile was in her voice. “Yeah, of course I will. I’ll be there soon. Thank you, Cormoran...for letting me be with you today. I’m so sorry for your loss.” She rang off.

Yes, his mother was gone, but her love lived on in him, and the best way to celebrate that love was to give it to other people.

He was so glad Robin would soon be with him again. Maybe he _would_ talk to her a little about his mum...

**Author's Note:**

> I share some similarities with Strike that made me empathize (-se) with him almost immediately on reading the first book. I would lie on a camp bed/cot in my office before I would seek anyone else’s charity or live with a friend, and I do well with solitude. I have a sister who is rigorous in her need to live a “normal” life having grown up in the chaos that was our childhood home. I have a (different) sister named Lucy whom I sometimes disagree with about our mother’s fitness as a parent. I’m in love with an intelligent, funny, tall, sexy redhead (my wife, married for eleven years, together fifteen--it’s our daughter that’s the strawberry blonde, though).
> 
> (I’m not a detective, missing half a leg, or a veteran, however. Also, I fancy myself significantly more obviously attractive than Strike, though I’m no Matthew for handsomeness. :) )
> 
> But most of all, my mother died when I was young (I was 17 to Strike’s 20), and I’m estranged from my father (though not so severely as Strike)--her killer was cancer, though, and my father is not a rock star.
> 
> My mother was irreverent and out of the ordinary, and none of it was a put-on or bullshit. Many people didn’t know what to make of her, but she was sharp as a tack, gave the most thoughtful gifts, and her love was strong like Leda Strike’s love. Boy, the number of outcast, offputting people she’d just start a conversation with like they were old friends, sometimes inviting them back to our house.
> 
> Trite but true: pass the love in your heart on to all the people in your life that you love. You never know when it will be the last time you get the chance.


End file.
